Otis Quotes & Sayings

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please. — James Otis

We've been performing with symphonies all of our career and it sounds so wonderful when they play 'My Girl' with the large string section, I want to turn around and look. — Otis Williams

When I consider the deeper meaning of yoga, I realize it's about a lot more than simply performing a variety of postures on a mat. — Carre Otis

Listen, ump. How can you sleep with the lights on? — Amos Otis

'I'll sit on him,' Otis says and laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world. He twirls a small ball of fire in one hand and a Desert Eagle .50 Caliber in the other. If Seven didn't know him, he'd probably be running away as fast as he could. It's a big gun. — T.J. Klune

There are compensations for growing older. One is the realization that to be sporting isn't at all necessary. It is a great relief to reach this stage of wisdom. — Cornelia Otis Skinner

Remember those black-and-white films with Frank Sinatra? Those guys looked like men and they were only 27! Listen to Otis Redding singing 'Try A Little Tenderness'. That was a man who understood what a man has to know in the world. Show me a real man now! Where are they? — Chrissie Hynde

Otis! Will you PLEASE stop killing me! — Rick Riordan

Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy. — Cornelia Otis Skinner

Emily and I have now reached the time in life when not only do we lie about our ages, we forget what we've said they are. — Cornelia Otis Skinner

I was born in 1968, just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam. — Carre Otis

Nobody can tell you how the blues feel unless they have the blues. We all take it differently. — Otis Rush

It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own. — James Otis

I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like. — Otis Blackwell

And this is why I have concluded that although every racial, ethnic, and religious group in the United States claims to want a piece of the American dream, there is no group that apologizes more for its success than black people. — Lawrence Otis Graham

The United States form a young republic, a confederacy which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence. — Mercy Otis Warren

To learn to die is an heroic work. — Mercy Otis Warren

To be clear, Goodreads staff have not been deleting any posts. A value we've always had here is that we don't censor content (unless it's against our policies - eg porn, etc). [April 1, 2013] — Otis Y. Chandler

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.

And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor. — Brian W. Aldiss

When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs. — Otis Blackwell

Otis, on the other hand, didn't miss home a bit. He had always hated the stairs in our house in Massachusetts. He was now five years old and very large for a golden retriever. I thought he was fat, but Bruce insisted he was just "big-boned". Either way, climbing the steep stairs at home was a challenge. Whenever Bruce and I went upstairs, Otis would sit near the bottom step, carefully calculating whether we would be on the second floor long enough to make it worthwhile to heave himself up the stairs. And on the way down the stairs, Otis was like a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler barreling down a steep hill. We just got out of his way.
But in the new Washington apartment building, Otis had an elevator. As far as he was concerned, life was sweet. — Elizabeth Warren

When I listen to most forms of music, in their most raw and pure, it all has a punk edge to me, like Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Otis Redding or Nirvana. — Langhorne Slim

I got a drum set at the age of four. I wasn't playing that well, just kind of banging around. I just wanted to play drums and my dad got me a set. I played for several years, but I wasn't meant to be a drummer, I guess. I can play drums on my own things - obviously on some of my own records I play drums. But I didn't start playing guitar until I was 11. — Shuggie Otis

My doctor felt that the main contributing factor was so many years of malnutrition, especially during my formative years, even before I got into modeling. — Carre Otis

Certain miracles that I beheld there have haunted my memory ever since: a gray April morning of sirocco, when the almond blossoms, the flaming tulips, the young green of the vines, hung as if painted on the motionless air; a summer night when the roses had an unearthly pallor under a half-eaten moon, whose ghostliness was somehow one with their perfume and with the phosphorescence of dew tipping their petals; a day when the trees stood part submerged in fog, into which leaves dropped slowly, slowly, one after another, and sank out of sight. — Harrison Gray Otis Dwight

My weight fluctuated when I was 30, and I did the unthinkable - I stepped out as a plus-sized model. — Carre Otis

Exposing any subject that is unpleasant or controversial means risking judgment and making some people feel uncomfortable. — Carre Otis

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music. — Johnny Rivers

I picked all the tunes before I went to Memphis, and the band was all set. Willie Mitchell is an arranger like I am, and he let me do what I had to do. — Otis Rush

Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, these are soul guys. Bruce Springsteen might not sing like Otis Redding, but he sings with white soul. He's singing and he's writing songs from the bottom of his gut. — Robin Thicke

I had dropped out of school and was a runaway, so I didn't have family to fall back on if I didn't work. I didn't have a lot of other options of making money other than modeling. — Carre Otis

From Adam's day until now men everywhere have tried to find their own way to meet God's standard of holiness. Has anyone been successful? No! — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

Make the most of the moments with those you love, it's once upon a person to Live and then Die. Give them the most precious gift of all Time! — Otis Teague

History's one great lesson is that reactionaries are losers. — George Otis

Not voting is one of the worst things that could happen in our community. You can vote for whoever you want to, but choosing not to vote spits in the face of our ancestors who fought for our right to vote. — Otis Moss III

When I do listen to music, I'm more prone to listen to the people I've always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. — Dolly Parton

MAY it please your Honors: I was desired by one of the court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance. — James Otis

Bill Mitchell said he really liked it. But when he asked the other four their opinions, we all took one look at ourselves in our raggedy long winter coats and cracked up. We knew we weren't likely to tempt anyone or anything, but what the hell, it was as good a name as any. — Otis Williams

I'm not suggesting our music is the only music, but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America's culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain. — Johnny Otis

The rights of the individual should be the primary object of all governments. — Mercy Otis Warren

Though my parents assured me over and over again that I wasn't stupid or slow, I sensed that my dyslexia was now a stigma on all of us. — Carre Otis

Can there be any liberty where property is taken away without consent? — James Otis

Otis," I said.

"Shhh," he said. "I'm incognito. Call me...Otis."

"I'm not sure that's how incognito works, but okay."

Otis, aka Otis climbed into the chair I'd reserved for Sam. — Rick Riordan

I did some great work with my Calvin Klein ads on the motorcycle. It was really groundbreaking because people hadn't seen a woman actually riding a motorcycle before. — Carre Otis

Well the artists that inspire me were, first of all I would say Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Errol Dunkley, Delroy Wilson and Dennis Brown you know. They have unique voice and sweet melody and you know, good lyrics those time yeh. The music was very nice in that time still seen, because you find that even the musical part, the musicians concentrate more on the melody than everything, more than how they concentrate on the money that time you Know — Gregory Isaacs

We come in many different shapes and sizes, and we need to support each other and our differences. Our beauty is in our differences. — Carre Otis

Ladies and gentlemen, Otis Alexander Sudeikis has LEFT the building! (I'm the building) — Olivia Wilde

One learns in life to keep silent and draw one's own confusions. — Cornelia Otis Skinner

Otis was inspired by a boy who sat across the aisle from me in sixth grade. He was a lively person. My best friend appears in assorted books in various disguises. — Beverly Cleary

Is it too ingenuous to imagine that anything can be left to say about a garden? Garden literature, descriptive, reminiscent, and technical, has blossomed so profusely among us during the last decade, that he should be an expert indeed who ventures to add thereto. — Harrison Gray Otis Dwight

When you become a parent, it's not all about you anymore. — Carre Otis

I didn't want to be a sideman. My own style was coming out and I was into my own writing. I wrote a whole album, I arranged it all with pencil and paper. I did eventually do a lot of work with my father, but that was different. I was living at home; I wasn't a starving musician. I wasn't spoiled, but I wasn't going to have some producer come in and tell me what to play. — Shuggie Otis

With the groups who asked me to join them - like the Rolling Stones, Spirit, David Bowie, and Blood, Sweat & Tears - I said no right away because I was way too much into my own thing. — Shuggie Otis

And there were times when one yielded quite shamelessly to the sentimental. They were more likely to be times of crickets, I think, than of birds - when it was impossible not to feel, like another essence of the sunlight, the bittersweet of life that lingers about old houses, and places where men have died, and things that forgotten hands have touched. — Harrison Gray Otis Dwight

You have to find a balance with food in your life - you can't take out food. It can be absolutely terrifying. — Carre Otis

Just as young people absorb all kinds of messages from the media, young girls learn what it means to be a woman by watching the older women in their lives. — Carre Otis

Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for. — Otis Moss III

'Tis social converse, animates the soul. — Mercy Otis Warren

What must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust! — James Otis

There is a different spelling between "rights" and "rites" - in other words, civic legislators and ecclesiastical councils have different responsibilities. — Otis Moss III

I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too. — William Bell

We need our goats!" I yelled.
I waded through the crowd until I reached our chariot. I grabbed Otis's face and pressed my forehead against his.
"Testing," I whispered. "Is this goat on? Thor, can you hear me?"
"You have beautiful eyes," Otis told me. — Rick Riordan

I had been on this insane diet for almost 17 years to maintain the weight that was demanded of me when I was modeling. My diet was really starvation. I am not naturally that thin. — Carre Otis

The Temptations still stand today, not in spite of those who left us, but because of them. — Otis Williams

Any man's measure is determined by what he will do when he is faced with his own deep need. Not how high he may reach but how low he may kneel. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

The next morning, when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. "I have no wish," he said, "to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don't think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him" - a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. "Upon the other hand," he continued, "if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the bedrooms. — Oscar Wilde

The extraordinary exertions of the colonies, in cooperation with British measures, against the French, in the late war, were acknowledged by the British parliament to be more than adequate to their ability. — Mercy Otis Warren

God almost never calls His people to a fair fight. — George Otis

My parents were both from the East and had moved to San Francisco only so my father could go to law school there. — Carre Otis

I used to just sign papers and not pay no attention to what I'm signing. — Otis Rush

Many women who have anorexia put their hearts in a compromised situation. — Carre Otis

People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we've created in America - cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions. — Johnny Otis

The measure of a man is determined by how he responds to the truth of God. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin', and that's the blues. — Otis Rush

I used to go down every year for the remembrance of Elvis' birthday. Memphis State College invited me to sit in the auditorium and speak to the people for one of those Elvis days. — Otis Blackwell

In the past, I often found that when I reached out for a fast cure it led me down a slippery slope of more medications, hopeful dependence on the next prescription and ultimately a much longer drawn-out illness. — Carre Otis

When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that. — Neil Peart

With This Ring
I give my all to you
Now and my whole life through
With this ring — Clyde Otis

When we go into the 80's it has more of a pop feel. But it's what I wanted to do. I wasn't trying to reach. See, that's the thing with me, I never wanted to reach any particular crowd. I'm writing for myself. If I don't like it I won't play it for anybody. — Shuggie Otis

But I would assert that despite the wide variety of yoga options and individual preferences, there is one universal element: the union of consciousness and movement, breath and awareness. — Carre Otis

The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition. — Mercy Otis Warren

The measure of a man is not so much how tall he stands but how low he kneels. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

If we are not represented, we are slaves. — James Otis

The Creator did not speak man into existence as He did all else which He made, but He began with previously made material. So in the restoration process He did not speak the restoration into reality by fiat. Rather He began the process through a series of connected acts and events. And certainly no act of the Eternal Creator would ever be without purpose or reason. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other, as this Writ of Assistance is. — James Otis

But life inevitably throws us curve balls, unexpected circumstances that remind us to expect the unexpected. I've come to understand these curve balls are the beautiful unfolding of both karma and current. — Carre Otis

Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting when the evening comes — Otis Redding

No republic ever yet stood on a stable foundation without satisfying the common people. — Mercy Otis Warren

True Christianity cuts across all other religions and creates its own culture. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

If you want to be a singer, you've got to concentrate on it twenty-four hours a day. You can't be a well driller, too. You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it. — Otis Redding

I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. That's it. — Benjamin Booker

It seems that people are more comfortable with the private outrage about gay marriage, because when you are outraged about this issue, it requires no work. There's no work that you have to do when you're outraged about a gay couple. There is work that you have to do if you want to see black fathers raise their children. There is work that you have to do if you want to see a school develop. — Otis Moss III

Oh, I was working occasionally in and out of New York. — Otis Rush

A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United States was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia. — Mercy Otis Warren

Far away is far away only if you don't go there. — George Otis

The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person, or by representation. — James Otis

How much verbal garbage there is going out across the air waves and across the pulpits of our land because preachers do not believe the Gospel; do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

I'll sit around and play my guitar; that's how I write tunes. — Otis Rush

I got behind that pencil and nothing happened for many years, but since they put me in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I've turned around. I took a good look at myself and said, I think it's time to get back at work. — Otis Blackwell

Jesus will judge us not only for what we did, but also for what we could have done and didn't. — George Otis